And, if you take care of paying the bills and everything else,” she said, “I think you are due a stipend for looking after the property.”
Heidi stopped and called out, “Enough of that talk.”
“No, I don’t think so,” Doreen continued. “Aretha will have to bring in gardeners now that you won’t be there. She’ll have to pay the bills and handle all kinds of things. I think she needs at least one thousand a month in order to take care of that.”
Heidi just glared at her, then turned to look to her aunt and sighed. “I’ll see,” she said. “No promises.”
Aretha grasped Doreen’s fingers and whispered, “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”
As she started to go down the front steps, Heidi turned. “What about the jewels?”
Mack shook his head. “I wouldn’t think about them, if I were you.” And he promptly ushered her toward Arnold and Chester.
“Oh, but—” Aretha tried to interject.
“I think Zachary deserves to finally get the emerald he wants for his beloved wife, and that money—plus the money from selling the other jewels—well, I think a charity might be the best answer,” Doreen said gently. “We don’t want anybody thinking you had anything to do with this in order to get those jewels, do we?” she asked Aretha.
Aretha’s eyes lit up with horror. “No,” she said. “If I can get one thousand a month from my niece to look after the place and be able to stay there …” She smiled in delight. “You know what? Maybe after all this, a charity is the right answer.” She looked down at the animals. “How about an animal charity? My vote is for giving all these guys as much care as they need. I’m really glad Heidi didn’t manage to shoot you.”
“Me too,” Doreen said. She waved as Aretha started the walk home. Then she whispered to herself again, “Me too.”
Epilogue
Wednesday Late Afternoon …
Arnold and Chester prepared to leave, each one of them holding onto one of Heidi’s arms.
“That was a good thing you did,” Mack said quietly.
She gave him a quiet smile. “Someone needed to help her. Now, of course, I don’t have a case to work on …” She looked at Mack hopefully. He stiffened and glared at her. “None of mine.”
“Don’t you have another case in progress?” Arnold asked.
“No,” Doreen said with a big smile. “I figured I’d look into these old ladies dropping dead.”
“You are the gardener,” Chester said, with that fat smile of his. “If anybody can figure out what kiwis have to do with that damn case, I’d like to know.”
Doreen stared at him. “Kiwis?”
Mack sent a warning look to Chester, but it was already too late. Chester was too far ahead.
“Yep,” he said. “A kiwi in the mouth.”
“But only one of the old women’s mouths?”
He leaned forward and said in that thick heavy whisper, “Yes, but all three had one on their person.”
Doreen grinned. “Killer in the Kiwis. I love it.” That was so her next case.
Mack shot her a hard look. “You stay out of it,” he said. “Cold cases are one thing, but my cases are another.”
She grinned up at him impudently. “No problem,” she said. “You’ve got, let’s see, what? Twenty-four hours?”
Mack jammed his hands on his hips, as Arnold started to chuckle. Whistling, he walked over to Chester and the two of them loaded Heidi into the back seat of their RCMP patrol car, leaving Doreen with Mack.
Doreen turned and looked up at him. “So?”
“So, what?” he growled.
“Twenty-four hours? Forty-eight? How much lead time do you need?” she asked hopefully. He took a hard step toward her, but she no longer felt threatened by Mack. She looked up at him and grinned. “Come on. Forty-eight hours it is then. It’s a deal. I’m on the Killer in the Kiwis case.”
Laughing, she raced into the kitchen. She heard the front door slam as Mack walked out, and she knew he had to leave. He now had even more work to do at the police station. And that was fine.
She’d give him the two days but not a minute more.
This concludes Book 10 of Lovely Lethal Gardens: Jewels in the Juniper.
Read about Killer in the Kiwis: Lovely Lethal Gardens, Book 11
Lovely Lethal Gardens:
Killer in the Kiwis
(Book #11)
A new cozy mystery series from USA Today best-selling author Dale Mayer. Follow gardener and amateur sleuth Doreen Montgomery—and her amusing and mostly lovable cat, dog, and parrot—as they catch murderers and solve crimes in lovely Kelowna, British Columbia.
Riches to rags. … Chaos again … Winning is important … at least for some…!
Doreen is overwhelmed with joy when she sees the volunteers show up on the weekend to help build her deck built. Most of the men who came to help were cops, friends of Mack. Only the job can’t be finished as they get called away on a case.
Another gray-haired lady has dropped dead. More heart attack victims. And of course, they didn’t have a heart condition. One was sad, two was a tragedy but three came under the heading of suspicious in her books. And my oh my the things she finds out as she digs into these ladies lives. Who knew what they’d gotten up too?
With her animals at her side, and Mack once again arguing at her to stay out of trouble, Doreen is determined to figure why and how kiwis keep popping up in this case.
Find Book 11 here!
To find out more visit Dale Mayer’s website.
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Author’s Note
Thank you for reading Jewels in the Juniper: Lovely Lethal Gardens, Book 10! If you enjoyed the book, please take a moment and leave a short review here.
Dear reader,
I love to hear from readers, and you can contact me at my website: www.dalemayer.com or at my Facebook author page. To be informed of new releases and special offers, sign up for my newsletter or follow me on BookBub. And if you are interested in joining Dale Mayer’s Reader Group, here is the Facebook sign up page.
Cheers,
Dale Mayer
About the Author
Dale Mayer is a USA Today bestselling author best known for her Psychic Visions and Family Blood Ties series. Her contemporary romances are raw and full of passion and emotion (Second Chances, SKIN), her thrillers will keep you guessing (By Death series), and her romantic comedies will keep you giggling (It’s a Dog’s Life and Charmin Marvin Romantic Comedy series).
She honors the stories that come to her – and some of them are crazy and break all the rules and cross multiple genres!
To go with her fiction, she also writes nonfiction in many different fields with books available on resume writing, companion gardening and the US mortgage system. She has recently published her Career Essentials Series. All her books are available in print and ebook format.
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JEWELS IN THE JUNIPER: LOVELY LETHAL GARDENS, BOOK 10
Dale Mayer
Valley Publishing
Copyright © 2020
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ISBN-13: 978-1-773362-70-0
Kindle Edition
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